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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27716987">Day by Day</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zargontari/pseuds/Zargontari'>Zargontari</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>TF2 Drabbles and Writings [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Team Fortress 2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Divergence, Drabbles from prompts, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Other, Possibly Unrequited Love, Requests are welcome, Short Drabbles, just for fun, made from headcanons, oh no I'm projecting on medic again, probable OOC</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:07:20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,356</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27716987</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zargontari/pseuds/Zargontari</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>This will be a series of short drabbles that I have made from headcanons or random ideas, each much too short to be published as its' own work.</p>
<p>I hope you enjoy! Comments and suggestions are appreciated.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Heavy/Medic (Team Fortress 2), Other Relationship Tags to Be Added, Pyro/Scout (Team Fortress 2)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>TF2 Drabbles and Writings [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1965316</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>• The idea that Soldier isn't as sure of himself as he seems.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Gently, his hands are placed around Tavish's neck. He tries to pull away, but the other man holds him right. Why is he doing this? Doesn't he know? Doesn't he realize how easily his neck could snap with just the right amount of pressure, a simple push and turn that would leave him bleeding and dead on the sheets-</p>
<p>"None 'o that now, Jane. Look at me."</p>
<p>He barely catches the words through the ever-present ringing in his ears. Reluctantly he forces himself to meet the Demoman's eyes, but only for a second. He can't let himself lose focus. Who knows what he'd do if he relaxed with his hands around Tavish's fragile throat? Vigilance is key, now. Tavish trusts him not to be a monster; to not kill or maim him.</p>
<p>Soldier wishes he hadn't placed that trust in him. Wishes the other'd put it anywhere but in the one person who doesn't know how to do anything but draw blood, even if only by accident.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Family Tradition</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>• What if it was family tradition to lose a body part and replace it with metal?</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He can't pull away. His father's grip on him is too strong, the Heavy's body blocking him against the table from the back. Dell already has bruises where they're holding him so tightly.</p>
<p>"Dad, please, you-"</p>
<p>"Hush up, boy. You knew this was coming." His father smiles, and there's a glint in his eyes that has Dell almost sobbing. He had hoped the man would forget, would have mercy; wouldn't have the courage to do this to his own son-</p>
<p>"It's family tradition, Dell, and with this, you will truly become my son."</p>
<p>His father pulls the saw down over Dell's arm, and all of his thoughts and struggles are lost in the resulting spray of blood.</p>
<p>When he wakes up, the first version of what would be later known as the gunslinger is attatched to the stump of his <br/>lower arm.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Dance</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>• They remember dancing.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They dance in a field of nothing but ash, and they dance alone. With their feet, they trace patterns and draw pictures in the gray and with every step they fall further into the hell they had tried so hard to escape; a hell comprised of bright and gentle light replacing the flames and the screams becoming laughter in their ears.</p><p>They don't want to go back, they realize as they dance.</p><p>They want to see the world clearly in all of its broken glory.</p><p>But their feet continue without their permission, and they slip into their daydream once more as they slide through the blood and ash.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Heroes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>• He died a hero facing an impossible foe.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There's blood on his hands, in his ears and his mouth. The silence he hears is enforced with the sharp thrum of the earth.</p>
<p>Still, even so, he runs. Though his legs ache and tear against the sharpened rocks that he trips on, he forces himself forward.</p>
<p>The bomb is heavy on his back, be can't let himself stop moving; getting closer and closer to the carrier that it came from.</p>
<p>They've started to take notice now; deadened eyes made of bright lights turning to look at the man with their demise and his own strapped to a bloodied back and drawing nearer with each stumbling step.</p>
<p>By the time he steps into the carrier, he doesn't know how he'll continue on. </p>
<p>He is only one man, after all; a boy, even among the mercenaries he works- no, worked alongside. </p>
<p>They're all dead, now.</p>
<p>It's up to Scout. The fate of the cities below rests on the bloodstained shoulders of a man who can only barely call himself a man at all.</p>
<p>Every step forward is a new agony, with wounds across his body flaring up in unmanageable pain that hurts so badly that there is nothing he can do except endure it.</p>
<p>And he does, because he must. Because if he fails, the cities - the cities with all their mothers and fathers who cared about their children and the animals and children who know nothing of bloodshed and war - will fall, and it will have been his fault.</p>
<p>He is nothing, if he is not determined.</p>
<p>(An explosion signals his success, and the world slumbers on without knowing what it has been saved from.)</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Ladybugs</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>• They like ladybugs.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Engineer was the one who first showed Pyro the beautiful little bugs, with their spots and delicate wings that hide behind soft, freckled armour. They fell in love immediately. Every time they can, they run out into the fields behind Engi- no, not Engie, not anymore - behind 𝘋𝘦𝘭𝘭'𝘴 house, searching for the animals that look the same even when there are no rainbows around to light them. The ladybugs crawl on Pyro's hands, unafraid unlike everyone else. They've seen how the town looks at them; how the mothers hide their children and people turn away to talk behind raised hands as if Pyro can't hear their scathing words.</p><p>The ladybugs know nothing of monsters or war. Pyro envies them, sometimes, late at night when the rainbows are gone and it's just them and Dell huddled in a bed while the thunder cracks like gunshots and makes them shake. But they can't blame the ladybugs for being innocent. It's all they know.</p><p>And if the war were to ever come here to try and take that away, like so many people took their own away; Pyro will keep them safe like they wish someone had done for them.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Two to tango</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>• Dancing is a human experience.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Scout knew how to dance, of course. Growing up where he did, there were a few dances that stood out; but nothing like the one he's entangled in now. </p><p>With a hand in his own and another against his waist, he is led into a gentle push and pull of bodies with their warm breath caressing his neck in a way no lover had before. Every step is another word in this story that Pyro is teaching him to write; where they pull him to show every sentence they can't speak in lungs too burnt to form the sounds. Scout doesn't mind, though. Somehow, they're more descriptive than any speaker he's seen on the stages.</p><p>Their language is one of joyful exclamations without breath, of fire, of dance that needs no words to be able to explain complex feelings and thoughts.</p><p>And he is so very thankful that they decided to teach him how to speak to them, even as they try to learn to talk in the touches that he needs to survive.</p><p>It is a compromise of the most beautiful kind, where neither are losing anything, but still, they give.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Memories of music</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>• Sometimes, he has to play for himself.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>His fingers pluck the strings with practiced ease as he balances the instrument on one knee, sitting on the edge of his bed. He isn't playing for anyone right now. Sometimes he has to play just for himself, because on the bad days there isn't a single other person he wants to be around. It's just Dell and an old, well-worn guitar against the demons in his mind; and that will have to be enough. He is his own warrior as much as he is his own adversary. Such tasks can only be trusted to himself, because no one else knows the demons like he does. Hell, he made them, after all.</p><p>So, he plays. He plays every tune his grandfather played first, every half remembered chord with unfinished verses that peter off at the ends that comfort him like no human could. With calloused fingers against the frets, he builds a wall of notes and with every strum he readies weapons of twisting lyrics. His mind is the battlefield. His guitar is his army.</p><p>His still human hand shakes where he holds it, but he won't stop now. This battle has only begun. It is tiring to fight both sides of a warzone, but he has little choice; angry thoughts and saddening songs clashing in a horrible amalgamation of disused and discarded emotions.</p><p>The wars he fights with himself are always the hardest ones to win, because if he plays for both sides then no matter what he does he will ultimately lose.</p><p>He loses to himself over and over, with every hesitation costing him a crack in his fragile walls.</p><p>Still, he plays.</p>
  </div></div>
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